{illustrators} – Page 156

The art of Dugald Stewart Walker, 1883–1937

A posting of Dugald Stewart Walker’s work this week at the always excellent Golden Age Comic Book Stories sent me back again to the Internet Archive to see if there might be further examples among their collection of scanned library books. Sure enough there’s not only a copy of the book which GACBS sampled from, Padraic Colum’s The Girl Who Sat By The Ashes, but also other fairy tale collections by Colum, including the one featured here, The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said (1918). Colum is well-represented in the Internet Archive’s American Library section and many of his titles seem to be at least partly illustrated. A cursory glance at some of the others turned up his retelling of Greek myths illustrated by Willy Pogány.

I’m not as keen on Walker’s work as I am other artists of this period—he has a tendency to give his adult characters gnome-like features—but the line work and compositions are first class. The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said is especially nice for its many peacock details, some of which are featured below.

left: Bloom-of-Youth and the Witch of the Elders; right: What the Peacock and the Crow Told Each Other.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Peacocks
• Willy Pogány’s Parsifal

Oliver Postgate, 1925–2008

The Clangers (and a Froglet).

Lots of eulogies for Oliver Postgate doing the rounds just now, somewhat inevitable when his Smallfilms productions for the BBC furnished the imaginations of generations of British children in the Sixties and Seventies. Smallfilms’ films matched their name, being short animations created on minimal budgets by a trio of Postgate (writing, narration), Peter Firmin (artwork and animation) and Vernon Elliot (music). Postgate’s voice was the single constant across the disparate stories. For anyone of a certain age his distinctive tones carry that punch of primal recognition common to all things which make a strong impression during childhood.

Noggin the Nog.

I watched everything Smallfilms produced but being a space-obsessed Space Age kid my favourites were always The Clangers, a family of hooting, pink creatures who shared a moon-like planetoid with a Soup Dragon and (in an orbiting nest) an Iron Chicken. Being equally obsessed with Norse mythology, however, I also enjoyed Noggin the Nog, which never seemed to get repeated very often, probably because the early films were made in black and white. Oliver Postgate seemed to like dragons; as well as the Soup Dragon, Noggin had a very traditional Ice Dragon with a pile of treasure while the otherwise non-fantasy Ivor the Engine—tales of a small Welsh steam train—included a tiny dragon among the cast of characters, perhaps derived from the national emblem of Wales. Postgate and Peter Firmin reworked some of these stories into book form and my favourite books in our school library were the Noggin the Nog ones and Tove Jansson’s tales of the Moomins. The Clangers aren’t as alien as they first appear when you know that their true identity can be found in the 1967 tale of Noggin and the Moon Mouse.

Needless to say, YouTube has numerous opportunities for us to sate curiosity or indulge nostalgia, including BBC 4’s 2005 documentary about Smallfilms. The Guardian gathered a few choice examples as an addendum to their obituary page.

• Lengthy Times obituary
• The homespun genius of Oliver Postgate
• See Emily play | The BBC meets the girl from Bagpuss

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Occultism for kids

The Sonic Assassins

Searching through discs for scans of Jim Cawthorn art turned up this comic strip curio from a November 29th, 1971 issue of UK underground magazine Frendz. Cawthorn and writer Michael Moorcock present rock band Hawkwind as musical superheroes and although this is done largely as a promotional piece for that year’s new album, In Search of Space, the Sonic Assassins tag was one which stuck, becoming almost a secondary name for the band in later years. The name Void City also recurred later as the name of a track on the Choose Your Masques album. It may have been around this time that Cawthorn painted special T-shirt designs for Hawkwind; up to 1980 Dave Brock was still wearing his Baron Meliadus shirt on stage.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Jim Cawthorn, 1929–2008
• Design as virus #7: eyes and triangles
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

Jim Cawthorn, 1929–2008

“Jim Cawthorn and I have been inseparable for over twenty-five years, sometimes to the point where I can’t remember which came first—the drawing or the story. It is his drawings of my characters which remain for me the most accurate, both in detail and in atmosphere. His interpretations in strip form will always be, for me, the best.” Michael Moorcock.

Jim Cawthorn—illustrator, comic artist and fantasy historian—died this week. Cawthorn was the first illustrator employed by Savoy Books and one of the key factors in drawing me to their doors in the early 1980s. His illustrations made their books special and his comics adaptation of Moorcock’s The Jewel in the Skull was a big influence on my early black and white work.

Mike Moorcock, Dave Britton and I seem to be in a minority in regarding Cawthorn as one of the finest fantasy illustrators of his generation. His carefully stipled drawings of the late Fifties and early Sixties are all miniature masterpieces and I don’t care how many artists attempt lavish paintings of Moorcock’s Elric character, for me the definitive representation remains the drawing used on the cover of the first edition of Stormbringer in 1965. Cawthorn was Moorcock’s illustrator of choice for many years and was involved with the Moorcock-edited run of New Worlds right from the start with his cover illustrating Ballard’s Equinox story. He also provided reviews for New Worlds, and his critical faculties were demonstrated to the full in 1987 with Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, an overview of the genre credited to Cawthorn and Moorcock for which Cawthorn himself wrote most of the entries.

I wrote in more detail about Cawthorn’s work for the Savoy site several years ago. For an overview of his career and influences, there’s Dave Britton’s interview from 1979.

Update: some extra pictures added.

Jagreen Lern and Elric (1963).

Continue reading “Jim Cawthorn, 1929–2008”

Fizeek Art

Baccant (1956) by George Quaintance.

Fizeek Art Quarterly was an American magazine of gay art and erotica which ran for 26 issues from 1961 to 1969. Artists included Tom of Finland and—as can be seen above—George Quaintance. The Fizeek Art Weblog continues the tradition of the magazine by posting extracts from old issues as well as more contemporary material (below) in a similar vein. “Vein” is perhaps an apt choice of description given the quantity of tumescent penises on display. Most of the images are quite gleefully hardcore (and often deliciously silly with it); as usual, if that’s not your thing then don’t look. Perfectly fine for the rest of us, however.

Virgo by Kit.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Let’s get physical: Bruce of Los Angeles and Tom of Finland
• Philip Core and George Quaintance